Now, heh, I know the temptation to pile the ones onto a person you dislike is great (or in the case of the BET pile them on your friends). Try not to do that, huh? Try to limit your ratings to the content of each individual post.

J, you cannot possibly believe that people will approach this that way. Seriously. If that kind of respect isn't shown in actual replies, which are not anonymous, how much less will it be shown in anonymous ratings? When there were ratings before in the form of trophies and turds, do you really believe that people did it for the greater good? If not, why would anyone start now?

I must admit some curiousity about what you mean by "the quality of posts." Does it refer to climbing safety/technique? If so, shouldn't only those who know what good climbing safety and technique are be able to rate it in other people's posts? Otherwise the rating is useless. Is it regarding tone? If so, can't anyone simply read a post to gauge that for him or herself? Whatever "quality" represents, shouldn't the rating votes of those with low-ratings figure less prominently in the average to make room for the presumably higher-quality/more useful votes of the higher-rated users?

In reality, this kind of post rating is far more likely to be approached as an "I agree/I disagree" and an "I like/don't like this person" rating than a "I support/do not support the quality of this content" or an "objectively speaking, this is a member whose judgment should/should not be trusted" rating. Also, all this time after the demise of trophies and poo, there are people who never dropped the subject, so your suggestion that something will change "when the novelty wears off" can't hold water. People used those ratings the way they used them when the feature had been on the site for quite a while.

But you are very, very smart, and you have always come across as reasonable, so of course you know all of this. This is why I'm not even sure why you'd attempt to sell this as a legitimate way to gauge quality on this site. If you'd said it was just for fun and not to be taken very seriously, then at least it would have seemed more honest.

And, for the record, I don't think the Ladies Room is a good place for these ratings at all.

Most notably, post rating will in the near future help us sort search results.

One other thing. Many people have brought up really good reasons why the current rating system could actually be detrimental to searches. If you must have the rating feature available to users at large, but you genuinely want the ratings to be meaningful for better and more useful searches, maybe you consider creating a subgroup of users (perhaps made up of all or select Mods plus a bunch of other users you trust), and the search feature only uses their ratings. That way people get to fling all the poo (aka 1-star ratings) they want on people they just don't like, and award 5-star trophies to people they just think are funny, but the search picks up what is hopefully a more balanced assessment of the users' "quality" with regard to climbing expertise or whatever you mean by it.

For the naysayers, you might actually want to take some time and look around. Users, the vast majority of whom want this to work, are already using this for what it's intended. I'm listening to all the feedback, but I don't agree with much of it. Ergo, this feature is not going away anytime soon.

And for the record, I fully expect some people to misuse this on a regular basis ongoing. I think the aforementioned folks will outweigh them in the end.

I think that you should show the number of votes next to the average rating. Without that, you don't know how to interpret the rating. If a post has 1 star, for instance, you don't know whether it represents a single pissed off rater or a consensus turd.

Jay

I do, however, agree with that one. Lemme see what I can do about that.

I think a digg or reddit style thumbs up/thumbs down system would be both simpler and more effective. Each thumbs up is a +1, and each thumbs down is a -1 - the post gets an overall score, so posts that were loved by lots of people will get a high score. This would make sorting a lot more intuitive - under the current system, a post with one 5-star vote looks better than a post with five 5-star votes and 1 one-star, depending on how you handle the rounding. Under the +/- system, the first post would have a score of +1, while the second would have a score of +4, more clearly illustrating that the second was enjoyed by more people.

...You obviously weren't here for the poo trophy wars....

And you really think this will be better?

I'm still on the fence.... it needs to play out for a while to see any perceivable benefits. I liked the poo/trophies but, agreed, the daily limit was a pain.

I'm pretty neutral to this I guess, but it will probably be used 95% for shenanigans. my main issue with regard to the search function is that people will find different amounts of usefulness in certain posts, so many an insightful post will get buried. but then they'd be buried anyway.

I do like the egalitarian principle of it, though. it's better than the kings of the forum determining what posts are worthwhile.

I think that you should show the number of votes next to the average rating. Without that, you don't know how to interpret the rating. If a post has 1 star, for instance, you don't know whether it represents a single pissed off rater or a consensus turd.

Jay

I do, however, agree with that one. Lemme see what I can do about that.

I think that you should show the number of votes next to the average rating. Without that, you don't know how to interpret the rating. If a post has 1 star, for instance, you don't know whether it represents a single pissed off rater or a consensus turd.

Jay

I do, however, agree with that one. Lemme see what I can do about that.

Working on this, but it's buggy. Hang on.

Looking at what you've got now, the phrase "out of" doesn't make sense: "3 stars out of 59 ratings"? I would simply put "59 votes" in parentheses after the rating, and reduce the font size a little.

Jay, just to satisfy my curiosity. May you post the distribution of the voting so far?. I'd be surprised to see a gaussian distribution. I bet that it's a bimodal distribution, with lots of 1-star or 5-star. I think people will tend to vote for those posts that they consider exceptionally good or exceptionally bad, but not the posts they consider "average". In this sense, I still believe the "trophy/turd" system was better, perhaps with a limit of 5 votes per day per user, to avoid limit turd wars.

Man, you are really adamantly against this rating thing, aren't you rockie? Perhaps you've realized how much crappy advice you give and are afraid you'll be rated down all the time?

Me? I'm an obnoxious prick, and fully expect the occasional rating beatdown to let me know when people have had enough of my attitude. At least I don't go around spouting off stupid advice though. I'd rather be rated down for being a jerk than for being an idiot.

Users, the vast majority of whom want this to work, are already using this for what it's intended. I'm listening to all the feedback, but I don't agree with much of it. Ergo, this feature is not going away anytime soon.

You don't offer the option I need for this post, i.e., stars in the negative range.